2018-03-03
1 小时 9 分钟Lorrie Moore joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss "Naked Ladies," by Antonya Nelson, from a 1992 issue of the magazine.
This is the New Yorker fiction podcast from the New Yorker magazine.
I'm Deborah Treisman, fiction editor at the New Yorker.
Each month we invite a writer to choose a story from the magazine's archives to read and discuss.
Always as part of Laura's consciousness was the worry that her parents would divorce.
They weren't volatile and didn't fight, not the way married people fought in books or movies, but instead picked at one another in a sly, monkey like manner, each baiting the other until one of them might be forced to slam a door or yell at the dog.
This month we're going to hear naked Ladies by Antonia Nelson, which was published in the New Yorker in May of 1992.
The story was chosen by Lori Moore, who is the author of eight books of fiction, including the story collection Bark and the novel a Gate at the Stairs.
Hi, Laurie.
Hi, Deborah.
Now, you read this story when it came out in 1992.
Yes, I did.
I did.
And I actually have even taught it in creative writing classes, but I'd sort of forgotten about it.
And then when you asked for me to think of something, then I remembered this story.
What struck you when you first read it?
What made you want to teach it?
Well, I love stories that are about children discovering the mysteries of their parents marriages and also having as the observer of that marriage, someone who is potentially sort of a writer or an artist.
And in that way, the story reminds me of Juno Diaz's fiesta, 1980, and also of Als Munro's Walker brothers Cowboy, where the child who is watching is the one who is really the sensitive literary one.
And the siblings are not really on board with the same observations that the central intelligence is organizing and putting down.
I mean, the character in the story is 17.